A beluga whale that surfaced in Norway wearing a harness in 2019 sparked theories that it was a spy trained by the Russian navy and has now surfaced off the coast of Sweden.
The whale was first spotted in Finnmark, a remote area of far-northern Norway, and it spent more than three years slowly traveling along the top half of the Norwegian coastline before abruptly accelerating in recent months to cover the second half and continue to Sweden. He was spotted in Hunnebostrand, off the coast of southwest Sweden.
Sebastian Strand, a marine biologist with the OneWhale organization, stated that it was especially puzzling given that the whale was traveling very quickly away from his usual environment, which is why they don’t know why he has sped up so quickly at this time.
The search for a partner may be fueled by hormones. Belugas are a fairly friendly species, therefore he may be looking for other beluga whales rather than just being lonely. The whale is “at an age where his hormones are very high,” according to Strand, and is thought to be 13 to 14 years old. The Svalbard archipelago, which is situated halfway between the north coast of Norway and the north pole, is home to the nearest beluga population.
Since traveling to Norway in April 2019, the whale is not thought to have encountered any other belugas. About the whale’s purported association with Russia, the Norwegians gave him the nickname Hvaldimir, a play on the Norwegian word for whale, hval.
Marine researchers from the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries removed a harness fashioned by humans from the whale when it initially surfaced in the Norwegian Arctic. The words “Equipment St. Petersburg” were imprinted on the plastic clasps of the harness, which also had a mount for an action camera.
Officials from the Directorate speculated that Hvaldimir may have escaped a cage and was trained by the Russian navy because he seemed accustomed to interacting with people. Norway’s suspicions that he might be a “Russian spy” received no formal response from Moscow. Western and Russian submarine movements are seen in the Barents Sea, a crucial geopolitical region.
Additionally, it serves as the starting point for the Northern Sea Route, which cuts the distance traveled by ship between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The whale had been scavenging for wild fish under Norway’s salmon farms, according to Strand, and its health “seemed to be very good” recently.
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He has already noticed considerable weight reduction, but his organization was worried about Hvaldimir’s capacity to obtain food in Sweden. In general, the frigid waters off of Greenland, northern Norway, and Russia are home to beluga whales, which can grow to a maximum size of around six meters (20 feet) and have a lifespan of between forty and sixty years.
